


oh feel our bodies grow and our souls they play

by webbythyme



Series: soulmate arrowverse [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternative Universe - No Island, F/M, baseball player oliver queen, nurse felicity smoak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-02-23 03:09:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23938117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/webbythyme/pseuds/webbythyme
Summary: Felicity dreamed of the day she met her soulmate. She thought she'd be older, established in her life. Not now, not at eleven and definitely not to Oliver Queen who she is pretty sure doesn't even know how to smileOr:The first time you touch your soulmate, it appears where you touched and now Felicity is stuck with Oliver Queen for the rest of her life.
Relationships: Laurel Lance/Tommy Merlyn, Nyssa al Ghul/Sara Lance, Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: soulmate arrowverse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1735513
Comments: 39
Kudos: 403





	oh feel our bodies grow and our souls they play

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I already had written with OC names. I went ahead and fit it for Arrow cause I liked it. That's why some things are very unArrow like. But it's AU for a reason. So why not????
> 
> Possibly may become a collection of multiple arrow couples and how the met their soulmates. Maybe.

Felicity used to dream of soulmates, dreamily listening in class about all the different symbols, the colors, the growth, the bond. She remembers craving more after her first lesson, running home and begging her mom to tell her every detail what it meant to have a one and only.

And she remembered her mom’s face, reaching up, pulling her shirt higher up her neck and mom only said, “Soulmates aren’t always love, Felicity. Remember that.”

She was so young, only seven and she stared up at her mom, “You’re wrong. Soulmates are everything.”

Her mom didn’t correct her, didn’t say anything but give a stilted smile and tell her to finish her homework.

It was only four years later, when Felicity found hers. She was sitting in class behind Oliver Queen. She had never thought much of Oliver other than he had an angry scowl and she wanted to see what it looked like for him to smile.

At only eleven, she could already see the walls flying around him, his personality chipped and cold. It is why it is so surprising that his skin was so warm, that even at eleven years old she felt a tingle when his right hand reached behind him with papers. Her left ring finger just barely grazed the tips of his own. 

It happened immediately, blue and purple splotches across her ring and middle finger--like raindrops splattered on to her skin. She gasped as she saw the deep saturated colors, the way it tingles on her skin and warmed her body, sparking up her arm and all but electrocuting her heart. 

She shoved her hand under her desk, between her crossed legs willed for the shocks to stop--begged them because it wasn’t supposed to be like that. It was supposed to be painless--that’s why some people didn’t even realize it happened. It wasn’t a conscious activity, but this is what she imagined getting a tattoo feels like, digging into her skin, taking root into her soul.

The only acknowledgement he made was the tenseness of his shoulders. But he didn’t look at her, she didn’t see his hand, though she didn’t need to. 

Oliver Queen was her soulmate.

\---- ------

It was abnormal for it to happen so young, and maybe that is why it got so messy between them. They didn’t know how to be soulmates at eleven and so it was best to avoid it. 

People looked, questioned the markings on them, but no one could definitively say who they belonged to because it could _literally_ be anyone. 

They rarely even spoke to each other, never once discussed out loud they were soulmates and at some point, they were going to have to do something about it.

For something Felicity dreamed about, she took an active approach of avoiding him. Being around him was like being stuck in a room with an open window that blew winter breeze in her face. Every so often, she gets a reprieve from the freezing cold, feels a burst of warmth from her blankets, and then the chill is back.

She basked in the warmth and as they got older, she began to crave it. 

Like when they are twelve, and the class is put in pairs for a class assignment and he followed her around the trailers while she looked for a place to sit.

And they sat side by side against a cement block that she didn’t know the purpose for, only speaking when answering a question when he reaches over and grabs the hand she was writing with, turning it on his own.

It’s the first time she has seen really gotten to look at his mark. His index and middle finger wrapped in vines and flowers poking through. They almost were translucent but there was no denying beauty in them and rich black out lines--just as saturated as hers.

“Why do you think they are so dark?” He asks her, still holding her hand in his , inspecting it.

She is twelve, she is not equipped for answering soulmate questions or having the elusive Oliver Queen looking to her for answers. He is rubbing his inked fingers over hers and she can’t move, she can’t breathe.

“I don’t know,” She finally says. 

He removed his eyes from her colored hand (that she knew clashed horribly with her neon orange nail polish) and to her eyes. 

She couldn’t help but gulp, or the constant fluttering in her heart. Those eyes, so blue and so clouded were gonna break her one day. She already knew it.

“I shouldn’t have a soulmate,” He tells her, with such precision and clarity.

She shrugs, in the only way true naivety can cause you to, “I guess your soul didn’t get the memo,”

And then he leans over and kisses her. And she lets him because he is her soulmate and what else is she supposed to do?

\--- ------

You shouldn’t mess with soul marks. 

But she didn’t know. She didn’t know she and Oliver were one of the older pairs of souls, living life after life for centuries. She had heard of bonding, but it is supposed to happen later--when you commit your souls to each other in marriage and shit and even then--it doesn’t automatically mean you are bonded.

It definitely isn’t supposed to happen when you are fourteen.

His mom died. And though they rarely spoke, even after he kissed her that one time, his mom died, and he showed up at her house in the middle of the night.

She had been sick, he knew it was coming, but her soulmate, her Oliver was never equipped for feelings of any kind and this was true in death.

And so, when she opened the door, to find him standing in her doorway, broken and red eyes, she didn’t close him out.

“Oliver?”

“Uh--my--” He takes a deep breath and it is so haggard, and Felicity hates the way it sounds, “My mom.”

It is all he says, unable to utter the final word and she doesn’t hesitate to step up, to wrap her arms around him and let his head fall into the crook of her neck--a feat since he towered over her by about a foot. He didn’t cry, not outwardly but she did feel the way his body shook with her.

She snuck him into her room, thankful her mom went to sleep so early. She really didn’t plan for anything to happen. But he was sitting there on the bed, looking so broken--even more than he usually did. And though she didn’t know much about him, it broke her too.

She stepped between his legs, gently held his face in his tiny hands and leaned down and pushed her lips against his own. It was like their marks couldn’t allow it to stop suddenly like it had two years previously. His hands on top of hers, their fingers interlacing, her purple and blue splotches a perfect background for his array of flowers. Neither paid attention to the way they grew, spreading across their hands, the way they blended together.

All she could think about was the way his lips felt against hers. She knew even at fourteen, he had been around the block a few times and she wanted him to forget them, she wanted to kiss them off him until all that was left was her. 

She moaned into his mouth, and she wasn’t sure what came over--if it was the mark deciding for her, her soul or if she didn’t need a soul mark to fall into him.

To taste him. 

To smell him.

She pulled back, and it was so quiet, and he stared at her with such intensity, using his eyes to tell her she was going to have to make this decision for them.

And then she pulled her shirt over her head, and his eyes never left her.

He knew it was her first time, could tell from her inexperience. The way she had never felt someone else’s touch, only his even if it was for a short moment at twelve. So, he laid her down with a tenderness she didn’t know Oliver Queen had and his hands were everywhere--preparing her--and then he was inside her.

She knew it was supposed to hurt, and it did slightly--but it didn’t compare to the feeling she got in her hand. It started just as it did the first time they touched--it warmed her hand and then electrified her body, inch by inch. But this time it ended at her center just as he thrusted in and out of her. She felt like she was losing oxygen and he was her only fuel as he bruised her with kisses, sucking, nipping.

His hands find hers, clasping them over her head as he continues.

“You’re mine, Felicity.” He whispers into her mouth, like she was the gazelle he just caught for dinner.

But it turned her on even more, made another shot of arousal shoot through her and she couldn’t stop herself from whimpering back to him.

“Yours, yours.” 

_Yours._

_Yours._

_Yours._

\---- ---

It doesn’t happen instantaneously . When she woke up the following morning, he was gone but expected nothing less from him. He never stayed long enough to make her miss him.

And at first, she didn’t even realize what she was feeling--the hatred and anger building inside her. It caused her to want to find him, to shove him and to yell for hours until her voice was raw. It was so unlike her, and it wasn’t until they sat in class and so suddenly--she feels every piece of him.

She walks by him, going to take her natural seat behind him when her hand grazes his shoulder and it is enough for the dam to break.

She feels his anxiety from her, his interest, his anger.

And he felt her want that she had for him--always.

It terrified her, it aroused him (shocker) and in doing so aroused her. It was a rollercoaster and that isn’t supposed to happen. They are fourteen, they don’t even like each other.

But it was there--bonded. 

His thoughts would filter into hers, his voice so clear in her mind a month after they slept together. It was sudden, like everything else. One second silence and the next she hears his long rants about hating the class. That day, he did at least have the decency to look shocked when she yelled for him to shut up without ever opening her mouth.

And it was when she slept, she got dream after dream--no memory after memory--of every life they had. All the ones that fell apart (and there were so many), ones when they were happy--he was happy.

It took its toll and she stopped sleeping, she stopped searching for him in the hallway and she researched how to withhold yourself from your soulmate.

Because he used it against her. She felt stronger for him than he did her and they both knew it. Neither could hide it anymore, and her mark pulsated whenever he was near (and she did internally freak out when she realized her blue and purple splotches covered her whole entire hand).

She began to hate him.

And he began to resent her.

\--- ----- ----

Oliver didn’t ask for a soulmate, he didn’t fucking want one and it wasn’t fair to be branded at eleven years old to a girl.

God, she was so fucking nice to him. He hated her for it at first. He could see the way she lit up at the word soulmate. Where it terrified him, it made her literally swoon.

And when they are twelve and he is sitting beside her, he can’t help the way he is pulled towards her, like a thread he can’t cut.

And so, he kissed her, because there was no way in fucking hell, he was gonna let his soulmate have her first kiss from anyone but him.

He wasn’t sure why he went to her when his mom died. Maybe because he wasn’t going to sit with his stepfather who didn’t care or because of the fact she was the last thing that was his. He had no more relatives, but at least he had her.

He didn’t go to fuck her, he didn’t go there for anything but to be able to smell her, to feel her close and for once allow his body to calm down.

Because he hated to admit it, but when he sat in class with her, her smell alone beat down every demon he felt. He usually fought against it, but that night he let her take over for him.

He just had to fuck her, to claim her. 

And now, if they were in close proximity, he hears every thought, feels every feeling (and she had so many. Fuck, she felt everything) and his mark practically cried out for her. 

The vines, the flowers wrapped around his whole hand now.

Fuck. He hated it. He hated sleeping, he hated being away near her. It was torture, it was exhausting.

And weeks later, he realized the other fucking side effect of bonding with your soulmate.

He wanted her out of his head, out of his blood and so at a party when a girl made it very clear she was down to help--he decided to fuck her.

And talk about a fucking surprise when he couldn’t get off.

He thrusted harder, the girl’s moans getting louder and louder. He would feel the pressure, feel it closing in and then it would stop. He was getting angry now, and he pounded into the girl.

He even let his mind wander, thinking about Felicity underneath him whimpering that she was his over and over and over until she came around him.

It gets better then, and he thought just maybe it was a fluke, but it wasn’t. He couldn’t get off. He faked finishing with the girl, shoving himself out of her, and he didn’t wait for her to calm down on the bathroom counter. He just tucked himself into his pants and left the party as quickly as he could.

He tried again the following week, a different girl, a different position. Nothing. And it almost made his skin crawl the longer he tried.

And then he tried with his hand, in the shower, thinking about Felicity with her mouth around him--nothing.

He was so sexually frustrated by Monday that he didn’t even care if he scared her when he found her walking the hallway and he shoved her into the empty art room.

“Oliver--

But he didn’t let her finish. His mouth was on hers the second he had the door closed. Her mouth instantly opened for him and he literally sighed against her.

_Fucking finally._

“Finally?” She asks him against his mouth.

“I’m gonna fuck you,” He responds, so very enjoying the dress she is wearing, and she shivers against him.

_Good._

He finally finds something spectacular about their bond--he feels her, and she feels him and that includes their want, their lust.

He doesn’t have time for foreplay--he would taste her next time; he lets his fingers make sure she is ready and then he is picking her up and thrusts into her as she wraps her short legs around him. It is quick, and it is animalistic and he has never wanted to come so badly.

It doesn’t take long, and he is fucking her so hard, her back going higher and higher, her arms wrapped around his neck, her mouth on his cheek, wet moans in his ear.

And finally, _finally_ , he finishes, right as she does, and he almost thanks her. 

\--- ----

It happens more times to count over the next year. Neither speak, and he is pretty sure she doesn’t even realize their new predicament because it isn’t like she is fucking anyone that isn’t him. 

And if she was, then he would beat them until they understood she was off limits. He starts to see the stares, others in the classes he has with Felicity, looking at their hands. It was hard to miss them with the dark colors, the large spread coverage.

But neither admitted to anyone about it. Because it was their secret and they had a good arrangement.

_You think they realize it yet?_

He had gotten used to having her in his head when they were close. It wasn’t constant since the only time he saw her was in class or when he was fucking her.

_God, you are so crass._

He smirks. He did enjoy making her uncomfortable. 

_Yes, it is practically foreplay for you._

_Do you want me to tell you other ways we can have foreplay?_

He feels her body flush, he feels it rush to her pussy and he grins into a closed fist as he pretends to listen to the teacher.

_I hate you, you know that?_

_But you love when I put my tongue--_

She yells at him and jumps out of her seat rushing out of the room and mumbling something about periods. Which is a lie--he knows exactly when it is her time of the month. She becomes so sick; he can’t even handle it himself and he is incredibly impressed that she continues on with her day like she isn’t dying.

He was sure she did hate him a little. They weren’t the normal type of soulmates. They weren’t in love, they didn’t talk, they weren’t much of anything.

They were each other’s.

But they weren’t.

And he wouldn’t be surprised if she told her best friend she hated his guts every time he walked by.

For his friends, when they ask where his lucky soulmate was--he said she wasn’t anywhere. She was nothing.

Which wasn’t true. But it was better for them both, in reality.

Oliver didn’t know how to exactly care about someone. The only person he really had ever loved with his mom and she died. He gave Felicity what he could, and he didn’t know how to give her anything else.

\---- ----- 

He goes weeks without her, only her thoughts and her feelings and it is the longest dry spell of his life. He doesn’t search her out, he doesn’t push to lock them in a room together and ruin her. He just let her be even if he couldn’t even fuck anyone else because what was the fucking point?

And then it happens. He doesn’t know what causes it, but he definitely doesn’t expect it to be in the baseball team’s locker room. But after a practice, when he is dirty and his arm hurts, and his teammates filter out, he feels her.

Anticipation, lust, trepidation. 

He smiles, it is small and hopes she doesn’t see it, but once the last guy was out of the room, she was there--locking the door and coming at him at a rather fast pace.

He drops his shirt he was holding just in time to catch her. She doesn’t say anything, slams her lips into his own and he can feel her want for him so much that he can’t even think straight. He doesn’t hesitate to push her towards the showers--both of them still clothed.

_What do I owe this pleasure?_

He isn’t exactly sure when they stopped talking to each other, maybe when they realized better ways to use their mouths. They are at the showers and he is doing everything he can to turn the shower on and still not remove himself from her.

_I can’t--_

She stops, and he feels embarrassment bloom inside of him--but it isn’t his own, it’s hers. He pries his mouth off her neck and looks at her.

“What?” He asks, almost panting. 

She chews on her lip, swollen because of him and he about forgets his question just to go back to his assault.

“I can’t--” She huffs, and he can’t help it—and he tries to—he smiles.

He leans down, brushing her blue hair (fuck, he loved her blue hair. She did it over spring break and when she came back with it, he almost blew a load thinking about staring down at that blue head while she sucked him off. Which though she didn’t do often—she did it expertly.) off her shoulder to give access to her neck.

His lips brush her ear, “What, Smoak?”

“I can’t finish.” She tells him, and she is mortified. He can feel it.

And she feels the anger rising from him.

“How’d you figure that out?”

“I tried--” She pauses again, and he will never understand why when it comes to talking about fucking, she is so awkward.

Her glare told him she was not impressed by his words.

“I tried myself.”

His mouth salivates at the idea, at the thought of her in her bed, alone trying to get herself off. Her agitation mounting at the fact she couldn’t do it.

“It’s the bond.” He tells her and she tells him she figured.

And he can’t hold back anymore. The shower is on, heat building around him and after hearing she tried fucking herself, he really needs her clothes off.

She sheds them the second thought crosses his mind. They're naked in seconds and he is picking her up, plucking her glasses off and putting them on a bench, and stepping into the steaming heat.

_And what were you thinking about?_

He starts to feel her building and his fingers are rubbing her so desperately as she tries to form a coherent thought.

_You. Only ever you._

“Fuck,” he grunts, his lips finding hers again and then he is in and they both sigh.

It is later that night, when he is in his quiet house that he realizes he was starting to need her.

And he didn’t want to need anyone. Not even his soulmate.

\----

Oliver had a plan. He always had a plan--and that plan involved only himself. Getting out of this town--by himself. Making a name for himself. It didn’t include Felicity, it didn’t include friends-- only him.

And he was gonna tell her that. Tell her that she was nothing and not even the mark could make him feel differently even if it wasn't solely the truth. This was his plan and he felt like it was a rather good one.

But then he saw her and all of his confidence flew right out the window. He fucking hated her for making him feel that way.

He was sitting in the cafeteria with Tommy because there was no way he was taking part in theater class. He would go as far as saying if he was to have a best friend, someone he had loyalty to, it would be Tommy even if Tommy’s dad was a fucking psycho of a stepfather.

Tommy who didn’t have a bonded soulmate--lucky bastard. He just had a normal every day soulmate that didn’t hear his every thought, his every whim.

He had gone a long time and never told anyone about Felicity, about their marking, their subsequent bonding. Too many questions, too many oos and ahhs because bonding didn’t happen that often. 

He might have gotten a little too plastered one night and let it slip.

Tommy never pushed, never asked questions though he did stare a little longer at Felicity when she walked by.

And today, Oliver wasn’t in the mood. He just wanted to tell her to fuck off because she was fucking with everything.

But he couldn’t even look at her if he was going to be able to say it.

And then there she was talking to Sara (cause contrary to what Felicity believed, he did listen to her when she spoke.

He embarrassingly hung onto every word like they held the answers to why he was so fucked up.)

She had on a skirt--and okay Felicity wore dresses all the time--they made her feel “flowy” and so that’s what they always were. They hung loose around her legs which made it rather easy to slip under.

But this was different, this was a denim skirt that was wrapped around her thighs, thighs he wanted wrapped around him.

He couldn’t even concentrate on Tommy and he knew she hadn’t gotten close enough to him yet. It wouldn’t be until she was in the store that she would hear every thought he had.

Her cyan hair--because she had reminded him it wasn’t blue, Oliver, it’s cyan-- was messy, falling around her and like had just been thoroughly fucked. Which she hadn’t because they hadn’t seen each other since the day before in the locker room.

But it was the shirt that really did it for him--it was tucked into her skirt and it was baggy and with a possessive realization he realized--it was his shirt.

He didn’t even know how she got it. If he had left it one of the many times he had snuck into her bedroom and snuck out before morning. Maybe he forgot the undershirt he wore under his button ups in the rush to leave. Or he had it underneath a sweatshirt and didn’t think about it when he left.

But either way, that simple shirt, grey with STARLING HIGH across the front was his and she was wearing it and any thoughts he had about telling her to fuck off was gone and all he wanted was to fuck her--preferably with the shirt on.

His face must show the blatant want he had for his soulmate, because he finally was able to focus enough to hear Tommy.

“She must be a master at fucking you,” Tommy sighs.

Oliver cut his eyes at him, trying to calm the blood that was definitely rushing to his dick. He blames the bond that a shirt can make him hard.

“Well, we _are_ fucking made for each other,” He knows he is bitter. But she really puts a wrench in this for him.

Tommy shook his his, “So then why don’t you date and not be a dick to her?”

But Oliver is done with this conversation because she is close enough now, and he knows the second she is because her whole entire body shifts. She turns herself towards him (slightly— her back is still the main sight he has but she inclined herself closer to him), her back tightens, she stands straighter.

_Smoak._

_Oliver._

He can feel her longing, and her fucking love for him. He pushes it down, in the box of her emotions, and continues instead to seduce her.

_How long do you think it will take before you no longer can focus on Sara?_

Her arms cross, her back still to him and he chuckles. She loved a competition. 

“Are you two mind fucking right now?” Tommy asks, offended at the thought. 

Oliver cuts his eyes and winks at him. “There are a few perks of being bonded, mate.”

His focus is back on her and she is frustrated, it isn’t at him--shocker--but Sara.

_I have never seen that skirt._

_It’s new._

_Well it makes your ass look delectable._

She huffs, and because she wants him to a die a very painful, celibate life _,_ she casually moves from where she was standing with her back to the window, and instead moves around to the other side of Sara and making it look like it is because she is looking for something.

_That’s rude._

_You are the poster child of rude._

He almost smiles, the sides of his lips tick up. She is such a smart ass.

_Question, is the shirt new too?_

She freezes and looks over Sara’s oblivious shoulder to glare at him.

“You’re gonna end up married to that girl. You do realize that, right?”

But he doesn’t respond, cause he almost has her. 

_I want to fuck you in that shirt, Felicity._

She is blushing now, and he can see her gulp and cross one leg in front of the other. She leans against the soda cooler and Oliver smirks.

He starts with image and image of what he wanted to do to her. And because he is a right dick, he starts thinking about their past lives--the ones he remembers--and all the ways he fucked her then.

He has learned that no matter what time in history he is alive, fucking Felicity was his favorite pastime. 

But he knew it got her, the image of 20th century them, when he died in fucking WWII, he rubbed against the spot on his chest where he got blasted away like it still stung. But it was before he left and he took her in the kitchen from behind against the counter. 

She loved that version of them.

They were happier.

Before he died on her.

He had long gotten used to the way he had memories of every lifetime. They didn’t cause migraines anymore and he was able to separate that they weren’t those versions anymore. Sure, they looked like them, but they weren’t. Felicity had a harder time with that. 

But it didn’t matter, because now she is walking towards him--Sara long gone. Her scowl is burning into him and he can’t help smile at her--evilly in her opinion.

_You are a right bastard._

_You are gonna fuck me though, right?_

She’s to them now, pays Tommy no mind and instead grabs Oliver by the sleeve of his shirt and pulls him away.

“Duty calls, Tommy.” He jokes over his shoulder, feeling lighter than he has in months as she starts down the deserted hallway. 

“Someone is eager,” He teases her. She still hasn’t let him go, pulling him down the hallway and he isn’t stopping her.

“You cannot show me the last time we slept together before you _died,_ Oliver.” She stresses. “And then expect me not to want you to sleep with me.”

“You’re wearing my shirt, Felicity.” He tells her like that should be her answer to why he is up and ready to go.

“And I am going to keep wearing it,” She shrugs, not as desperate as before, but still shoving him into the school store.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d think she likes him getting her off here.

Her eye roll confirmed it.

“And why are you gonna keep wearing it?” He asks her, already with her legs wrapped around him, her skirt bunched up at the hips and her back against the door.

“Cause I’m yours,” She whispers leaning into to kiss him, “And you’re mine.”

Their foreheads are touching and her fingers are at the nape of his neck and he is breathing fast.

He doesn’t love her. He _doesn’t_. 

“One day, you’re gonna realize it isn’t so bad to love me.”

\----- ------

Felicity is sitting on the bleachers with Sara--Laurel at the fence and ogling Tommy. She was sad, so sad. Because she was in love with Oliver--like really in love with him. Even with his mean comments, his cold personality, the way he shuts her out. He practically uses her solely for orgasming.

But she loved him and every broken piece of him.

But for how sad she is, so is Sara. And Felicity had been so sad from Oliver for so long she was almost a master in it. 

“Why are you being so quiet?” Felicity asks.

She didn’t know why she came with Sara to the bleachers to watch Laurel watch Tommy practice. Maybe because she had a perfect view of the baseball field.

She can see him--her Oliver, her soulmate and her husband from twenty different lifetimes. 

God, she was so screwed. He had been difficult in the past, but somehow this version of him—though a right dick— might just be her favorite.

It might possibly be the baseball. He has never played that before and good lord he looks good in the uniform.

“I have a mark,” Sara whispers.

Felicity covers her own which had been hurting recently. It wasn’t as dark as it used to be and in the last month it had started to burn if she went too long without seeing Oliver.

Which had been a while, if they weren’t in class, she wasn’t around him. He avoided her like she was the literal plague--which killed her in that life. Fucking plague.

In that life, he held her hand as she died, kissed her blood tinged lips knowing full well it would kill him. Their daughter already succumbed to the disease at only eight months old. 

In this life, he can’t even look at her, can’t love her.

“Do you know who it is?”

Sara shakes her head, “I have to tell her, Felicity.”

And she did, but it didn’t mean she had to dump Nyssa--Sara’s new girlfriend. Felicity wouldn’t be able to have a relationship unless it was Oliver because they were bonded.

But Sara wasn’t. She didn’t have to choose her soulmate.

“It doesn’t have to mean anything. I mean, look at me. I have had my soulmate longer than anyone in our grade. He and I aren’t anything.”

Which was a lie. Oliver Queen was her everything and had been since their first life almost a thousand years ago in Egypt.

But Sara didn’t know that and in this life where she is just a seventeen year old girl and she meant nothing to him.

“Yeah, and your mark is suffering from it.”

They continue to discuss it, but all Felicity can think about is the fact it isn’t her mark suffering. It was her heart.

\--- ------

If she had to find a comparison, then this Oliver was similar to the version of him in London. When he lived in a mansion--a manor-- and she was just the servant. That version of him was cruel, and fought tooth and nail to not love her. 

And in the end, he didn’t let his heart win and instead casted her off to save himself.

She hated that version of him.

And she hated this one too.

“God, why can’t you just explain to me what is wrong?” She wanted to pull her hair out as they stood in his bedroom, a party blasting underneath them.

She usually didn’t go to them.

But Sara and Laurel were going and told her she needed to get out more--and needed to see the Queen house at least once.

She didn’t bother explaining she knew the Queen house and the Queen boy very well.

And of course it ended with her yelling at him.

“Just because I am branded by you doesn’t mean we are friends. We aren’t, Felicity. I might fuck you, but you don’t know me,” He is sitting at his desk chair while Felicity felt tall in front of him. It wouldn’t last long.

“Oh cut the bullshit. I am the only person who knows you.” Her hands were on her hips, glaring at him.

She wasn’t sure what caused the argument. What caused them to follow each other into his room.

Maybe because they weren’t speaking.

But he still wanted to fuck her.

And it pissed her off.

“Why? Because we have lived multiple lives together? I am not them, Felicity and neither are you.” He snaps. He looks so angry, the veins in his neck popping out and the bags under his eyes were darker. 

She screams, literally because she is so tired of him. “I know that, Oliver. I don’t need other lives to know you in this one! You are infuriating!” She stomps and doesn’t care if he thinks she is a child which he does because she can hear every stupid thought.

“Nothing is keeping you here! _Nothing_!” His elbows are on his knees, he is leaninging forward and even sitting he still towers over her with his anger. 

It hurt. More than it really should, but he knew it was going to break her. Because how many times has he shoved her away?

How many life times has he told her she was nothing to him?

Too many.

“I am nothing?” She wasn’t going to cry. Not in front of him, “Fine, then we are _nothing_ , Oliver.”

She goes to leave him and his lonely fucking existence but stops, hand on the knob.

“In all of our lives, I have never betrayed you. Not your heart, not your trust. This is the _last_ life you do it to me.”

And then she slams the door and doesn’t even care if people see her running away crying.

\------- -----

They don’t talk after that.

They don’t even think to each other.

She shuts him out and he hates himself for it.

Because he knows he should just give up trying to stay away from her, to just accept that he cares about her. But he can’t, because in six days, they are graduating and he is getting the fuck out of this stupid town after accepting the first offer a team gave him. She deserves a fuck ton more than his stupid ass.

He does rather well keeping his cold, stoic exterior in place. No one questions his mood because Oliver Queen is an ass, and so when is he not looking like murder?

He could forget her, even if his mark burned him every time she was close enough and he turned away from her. His mark hated him.

And he hated himself so they had something in common.

In the past two months, he kept his cool. He didn’t get into fights, he barely even glared. He was the perfect student. 

But then, _then,_ fucking Ray fucking Palmer felt it was necessary to follow her around and not taking the fucking hint.

Is the mark covered in paint not enough for him to understand she is fucking taken?

He can hear his mom and Felicity together--telling him she wasn’t property.

Yeah, well fuck that logic.

She was his.

And he was hers even if he didn’t want to be with her.

She can saddle herself to a future without getting off after he is gone and can’t see her.

Not now.

And fuck the things it does to his mind, to his heart every time she smiles up at Palmer.

Fuck that.

Fuck him.

Fuck her.

Tommy tries to calm him down, remind him that _he_ is the one that told Felicity to fuck off. He is the one who told Felicity she was nothing two months ago at that stupid party and if someone else wants to step up to the plate even when they see the mark across her hand, she deserves it.

“When the _fuck_ did you start caring about what Smoak deserves?” Oliver seethed at him as he stared at Palmer’s back wishing he had a knife or something to throw at him and mess up his perfect fucking polo—shit, if you looked up Frat boy it would be a picture of Palmer’s mug shot from his DUI last year.

“When you forgot to,” Tommy deadpanned, obviously not in the mood for Oliver’s theatrics. 

“Fuck _you_ , Tommy.”

“Careful, Oliver. If you aren’t careful, people around you might think you actually care about something other than your baseball career.” Tommy tsks him, like a mother he didn’t fucking have.

Oliver’s marked hand slams against the lunch table reminding Tommy that Felicity Smoak will forever be tied to him. The people around him seats down jump, yet trying their hardest to get a glimpse of what makes the elusive Oliver Queen tick.

But his focus was on Tommy and reminding him just who he was to Felicity. It didn’t matter if she was with someone else, every time she saw her hand or someone tried to fuck her, it would be Oliver she would think and no one else.

“Shut the _fuck_ up, Tommy.”

Tommy doesn’t even have the decency to look worried or frightened. Long used to Oliver and his outbursts. He looks as causal as if he was buttering fucking bread. “You can be as mad you want. You don’t care about her, you care that she isn’t at your beck and call anymore.”

Tommy could go fuck himself for all Oliver _cared_. The whole reason he pushed Felicity away was because he cared about her and her annoying beautiful self. Because this version of him was broken and battered. He didn’t know how to be good to her, he didn’t know how not to hold her in his hands and not make her rot. 

He did the right thing and here she is, dangling someone in his face that wasn’t him. 

Oliver didn’t remember much about his dad. He died when Oliver was only five--but from the stories he was told by his mom--Oliver’s bubbling under the surface temper was all Robert Queen.

And his dad would completely understand in this scenario. He almost knew he had his dad’s approval. 

So he waited for the right time, watching and waiting for the moment he would strike against fucking Ray fucking Palmer.

\-- ---- 

He sat on Tommy’s couch--the party and world continuing around him. He wasn’t sure why he came to these parties. Maybe to keep the questions at bay--where are you Oliver? Come out to play Oliver. Aren’t I what you want Oliver?

No, what he fucking _wanted_ was to throw his blue-hair soulmate over his shoulder and run in the other fucking direction. But she was never going to leave her mom who mentally barely was even there most days. Oliver didn’t know the whole story between Felicity’s parents--he doesn’t even think Felicity does. But what he does know is the Smoak matriarch had a soul mark on her neck of a dagger and jagged scar beside it. 

She barely hung on by a thread and that thread was continuously being restrung together by Felicity and if he took her away--if he asked her to go with him--she’d resent him the day her mom was gone.

Cause her mom would eventually do something to herself. 

It is why Felicity rarely left the house, why she rarely came to the parties she was invited to. Felicity was scared what would happen if she wasn’t around. If she couldn’t keep track of her mother’s pills, of the razors, of locked doors. 

It was why it was so shocking when he saw her cyan hair through the crowd, she is so fucking short, with Sara close by her side--her own soulmate nowhere to be found.

Why couldn’t Oliver be like all the other fucking soulmates? Where he didn’t feel jipped out of choosing who he loved, where he didn’t feel overwhelmed by so many fucking feelings?

And when was he going to come to terms with the fact Felicity Smoak caught his attention long before she was supposed to?

He can’t hear her, she always had random shit going on her head that made no sense when he was around. But he could feel her now.

He hated the way her feelings enveloped him and he hated even more how they lined up with his own.

She missed him. She longed for him. She loved him.

He was rather certain he looked just as miserable as she felt. But it didn’t matter. In six days, he’d be gone and they wouldn’t have to feel it anymore. She could do whatever the fuck she wanted and tonight he was going to remind fucking Ray fucking Palmer just how underwhelming he was for his Smoak.

He was sipping on his beer, had not moved from his spot in quite some time. He long lost sight of her but he knew at all times where the fucker who followed around her was. He ignored the classmates that came up to him, the girls who said they missed him like he had paid them any attention the last four years, the guys who congratulated him on scoring a position on the Dodgers starting rotation. Some said they missed him at prom--why the fuck would he go to prom?

Only pro of going to prom was seeing Felicity in her dress and he was not about to fucking torture himself with that.

Nothing had pulled his attention long enough to move him from this spot. He can still feel her, her subtle emotions lingering behind every thought he has.

And then it happened. 

A resounding fear ran through him and he knew for a fact it wasn’t his. Tommy is beside him, had been the whole night with Laurel on his lap, ready to deescalate any rude comments Oliver might throw out, and notices instantly the worry crossing Oliver’s face.

His eyes are like lasers, searching through the room with precision until he found her and found what caused that feeling to run through her.

It was getting more pronounced, more icy and crippling, dripping through him. 

“Oliver?” Laurel’s voice barely registered.

“Where the fuck is she?” Oliver asked, feeling like he was gasping for air. 

He finds Ray, at the keg being the life of the party, but she isn’t with him.

Oliver is on his feet, trying to let the feelings guide him to where she was and to kill what was causing this pain. He found Sara making out with her girlfriend and knew she wouldn’t be able to help him.

He is shaking, from a mixture of his own fear and anger. Why did Tommy’s house have to be so fucking big? Well, when his father got dumped by Tommy’s mom, he lost everything to her including the mansion. Probably why Malcolm instantly ran to a broken Moira Dearden. 

He stops, taking a deep breath, trying to combat the misery of emotions in his head and the party around him and then he hears her. It is so quiet, but he hears it.

_Oliver._

She was crying for him in her mind and she was upstairs. He knew she was and he took steps two at a time.

He had felt this fear go through before. In a past life and he was too late. He found her with blood between her legs, a ripped dress, and bruises all over her body. It was how they found out she _was_ pregnant. It was how she lost the baby, and how he lost her. 

Oliver didn’t want that again. She couldn’t go through that again.

He found the men that did it and he beat them each after he yelled in their faces that it was their fault he couldn’t touch his fucking wife. He couldn’t comfort her, he couldn’t hold her because when he did, she tensed in fear. He didn’t wait around to see if they succumbed to the beating. They deserved it for what they did to her.

He can’t let this happen again.

\--- ------

Felicity was trying so hard to ignore Oliver and his following eyes. It was exhausting to keep up the mind barriers so he couldn’t hear her thinking of him at all times. God, she missed him. It was excruciating and when she found out he was leaving in six days and didn’t tell her she knew they were done, he made it clear she was nothing.

Ray was nice, probably could even be great, but he tried to kiss her and she moved her head because he wasn’t Oliver. She just wanted Oliver. Ray didn’t push, continued to be a friend and for that she was thankful.

She wasn’t going to come to this party, she didn’t want to leave her mom, didn’t want to see Oliver. But it was a graduation party and felt it necessary to go for at least a little bit.

And it was _not_ because she knew for a fact Oliver would be there because it was Tommy’s house.

She didn’t even notice someone followed her down one of the hallways upstairs until it was too late. She was trying to find a place to hide, until it was time to leave. She quickly decided she didn’t want to be here and she knew Oliver had a room somewhere in this monstrosity of a house. She says that like Oliver’s house isn’t bigger. So big that even his one friend other than Tommy and Oliver’s teammate--Roy had taken to living in a different side of the house and never noticed Felicity was there.

She was standing in the middle of the hallway, trying to remember the room Tommy described to her months ago when she was looking for Oliver. She ended up finding him before she went to look for his room. She just knew no one else was going into Oliver’s room. And how mad could he really be at her? She was his soulmate and if need be, she could play the wife card. It pissed him off when she tried to compare them to their past selves, but he didn’t realize when she reminded him that she was, in fact, his wife in multiple lives he always softened on their argument.

Nothing her ass.

“Hey,” She hears behind her.

She turns, and there is a guy she definitely doesn’t know and definitely drunk. He was wearing a letterman jacket for a different school and she assumed he was just a friend of someone else that went to Starling High. He was attractive in a class way—brown hair, blue eyes, tall. But he looked at her like he could have whatever he wanted. 

“Do you need help?” he asked her. It was cordially, but Felicity felt on edge. Something was wrong. She could still feel Oliver’s indifference rumbling around her chest. If something was to happen, he would find her.

“No,” She tells him.

He takes a step closer to her, and she takes a step back.

“You look lost.” He says it with a condescending tone and if she wasn’t so scared, she’d remind him she didn’t need a man’s help.

“I know exactly where I am.”

He chuckled, and it was smooth and littered with darkness. “I saw you downstairs. Kinda hard to miss.”

Another step.

She was beginning to panic. She was too far away from the party for anyone to hear her scream. And Oliver was beginning to fade. Or was she just too scared, it overpowered anything he felt?

“I’ve seen you before too.” Another step, her back now against the wall, “At the baseball games.”

She gulped. She pulled down at her shorts trying to make them longer. She pulled at her crop top to make it cover her more from his creeping eyes.

“I must say, it took me a minute to realize just how fuckable you were.” He leaned in and took a long deep breath of her neck.

_No, no, no, no._

This couldn’t be happening. She couldn’t do this again. It ruined her last time and she was sure it would ruin her now. She was crying now, shaking her face back and forth every time he tried to put his lips on her own.

_Oliver._

_Oliver._

_Oliver._

Over and over. If he couldn’t hear her, he would at least be her thought as she tried to break away.

“Get off me!” She bangs against his chest to no avail and he grabs her wrist in one hand, bruising.

“Oh, look you have a soulmate.” He taunts her.

“He is going to _kill_ you,” She spits because honestly Oliver had killed before. Maybe not in this life, but in past lives-- yes. And they might be together, he might claim she is _nothing._ But he had killed for much less than this when it came to her. He had killed because of this exact reason. 

He laughs and just as he is about to spread her legs with his knees, she rears back and uses her own knee and slams against his groin. He instantly falls off her and Felicity runs as fast her converse would let her.

\--------- -------

Oliver was close, he could hear her cries outside his mind now and whoever the fuck this guy, he was going to kill him. Oliver rounds the corner when she runs into him. She all but falls into him, her arms so tight around his neck he can barely breathe. Her head is in his chest and she is sobbing into his shirt, her glasses pressed up against him. 

His hands are wrapped around her, “It’s okay. I have you.” He whispers.

He is apologizing for not getting there faster, but he was also so thankful he made it this time. 

He finally draws his attention away from her, her shuddering and shaking form, to the piece of shit in front of him--staring at him already with fear.

“Queen, I--” Oliver’s eyes are no longer gentle, but full of coldhearted stone. He doesn’t know his name, just knew he was a sucky ballplayer and apparently a terrible human. 

His eyes are on Oliver’s hand, the one splayed across Felicity’s trembling back. There was no denying it anymore exactly who each other’s soulmates were.

“What’s happening?” Oliver hears somewhere behind him.

“Tommy, hold Felicity for a second.” Felicity tightens her hold around his neck.

_Don’t Oliver._

He knows exactly why she is worried. Not because she doesn’t want him to beat this fucker until he never looks at a woman until she says it is okay. But because she is afraid he won’t stop once he starts.

_I’m not gonna kill him._

She scoffs against his chest. He unwraps her arms around his neck and pushes her--gently--into Tommy who has not even asked for the details but Oliver is thankful for his best friend when he instantly curls himself around Felicity—protecting her. Laurel casting a hand over Felicity for extra comfort.

And then Oliver is on him, not giving the piece of shit a chance to run away from him. He slams against the wall and then there’s one punch.

“She said no, you mother _fucker_.” 

Another, his nose surely broken if Oliver’s guess was correct.

He can still fear her trembling fear in him and it only spurs him on. 

“I didn’t know she was yours.” He blubbers through the blood.

And somehow it angers him even more. He grabs him by the collar, pushing him up the wall, his legs dangling in front of Oliver, trying to kick but gaining no power.

“My attachment to her has nothing to do with it,” He hisses, “You don’t fucking touch people who say fucking _no_.”

He pulls him off the wall to shove him back against it. His body is fuming, so hot he wouldn’t be surprised if there was smoke coming out of his ears. His knuckles were bloody, he was pretty sure there was blood on his face, and he really couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Queen, you’re killing him.” He doesn’t register the voice, just feels the arms around him pulling him away.

But he lunges back one more time, slamming his forearm against the fucker’s throat and enjoying the way he begins to redden in the face. He feels someone still pulling at him but he doesn’t fucking care. It wasn’t Felicity and that’s the only person that would be able to stop him.

“I swear on everything you hold dearly that if I can’t touch my wife after this, I will find you and cut off every fucking piece of your body until you are dead.” He didn’t even know he said it, didn’t know he had fallen right back into the world where he lost her because of a fucker like him.

“Wife?” It is at the moment, Oliver realizes just who grabbed him.

Fucking Ray fucking Palmer.

Yeah, well now he knows not to touch her.

_Oliver._

Her voice, her clear trembling voice is what lets him drop him to the floor. To look at her passed the crowd gathering around them. He doesn’t even care about the dude gasping for the air he doesn’t deserve and he kicks him once more for good measure.

Her tear stained face, her trembling body curled around Tommy, looking over her shoulder and hands in front of her mouth. He shoves Palmer off him, not bothering a response to the whispers. He knows he looks like a maniac and he really couldn’t bring himself to fucking care.

“Come here, baby,” He says like he isn’t covered in blood--like he didn’t just step out of a scene from psycho.

He reaches for her and she has no hesitation--and that’s enough for him to not care what these people thought of him and Smoak-- to wrap herself in him, crying once again. He tucks his hands under the knees, picking her up and not giving two shits what everyone thought. The crowd watches them as they go down the rest of the hall into his bed room. He’d let Tommy deal with the fall out.

He calms her down, whispers in her ears that she was okay, that he got to her this time.

And then she cleans him up. Like she has done so many times before.

“You called me your _wife_ , Oliver.” She reminds him as he sits on the side of the tub and she sits on the toilet in front of him with a wet cloth.

He doesn’t even flinch when she rubs at his destroyed knuckles.

She has been a nurse so many times, now that she remembers, it is a precision of gentleness with every touch she makes.

“Sorry if that ruins your dating plans,” He grumbles.

She rolls her eyes.

“Don’t be stupid.” She turns behind her and dips the towel back into the sink.

“It’s gonna confuse everyone,” She sighs.

“I didn’t mean to say it,” He responds tiredly. He didn’t even know he said it. “I just--”

“I know,” She nods, “I know.”

He jerks his head because neither wanted to discuss that fucking life. God, that life fucking blew. Instead, she changes the subject.

“You’re leaving,” It isn’t a question. She just knows. The whole school knew. “You weren’t going to say goodbye.”

“No, I wasn’t.” He confirms and at her rush of heartbreak, he adds. “As you can see from the bloodied knuckles and blood on my face, I am not exactly sane, Felicity.”

She looks away from his hands to his eyes, her lips trembling and she pushes her glasses up her nose, “I don’t care.”

“Yeah, well I do. And I am going to destroy you if I don’t figure out what the fuck is wrong with me.”

She gulps, she is about to cry. He pushes her hands away, the ones trying to repair him and instead clasps his cut and welted hands on either side of her face. Her tears are about to overflow and he really fucking hates himself. He leans his forehead against her own. 

“You need to go to college, become a nurse or doctor like you always do or maybe even some shit with computers. You need to take care of your mom and I need to get out of this town, Smoak.”

She shakes her head.

_You are so fucking stubborn._

_I love you._

He hangs his head, “That’s why I have to leave.”

She whimpers and he hates himself, but lifts his head to her breaking eyes.

“Baby,” He was trying to be better, trying to put her feelings and wants above his own and it was really fuckng trying.

“What about what I want?” She cried.

“You need to stay. If something happens to your mom, you will never forgive yourself. And if I break you, I will never forgive _myself._ ”

She stills, and he knows she is starting to realize he has to do it. He had never been honest with her about his feelings. He had never made it known just how much he cared about her and no one else. But here he was telling her everything in the same sentence he tells her he is leaving her. 

“You can’t lose me, Felicity.” He reminds her, removing his marked hand from her face and reaching down to wrap it around her own, “But you can’t have me yet.”

And she nods. And finishes cleaning him. And then she sleeps cuddled around him.

And six days later, he leaves her.

\--- ---- 

Oliver knows when it happened--and when his therapist asks him--to tell her the moment Felicity Smoak became more than a soulmate, more than a quick fuck. When this heart, this Oliver loved her--only one moment comes to mind.

There had been multiple times during the year following their bond where Oliver would ask her for answers during tests. She would always scoff in her mind, and her thoughts became song lyrics to keep him out.

She was better than him at the mind shit. She was better than him at most things.

But particularly when it came to taking tests. Felicity was honorable to a fault-- purposefully even getting a question wrong once when he gave her the correct answer. Felicity refused to cheat, she refused to ever help him.

She took her tests so fast, he wasn’t even sure how she was able to read the questions fully and he would later find out--she didn’t. She got the words needed, and didn’t even think when she answered. It is why she was able to do it so fast and without him ever picking up the answers.

But even then, she’d be able to get through the test without him hearing. Because in every life, in every time they bonded--Felicity handled it better than he did. She took the memories, the thoughts, the feelings like it was just another day.

It was _always_ harder for him. He _always_ felt like his free will had been taken away. He _always_ pushed her away at first. God, it was a script written for him a thousand years ago and he follows it like the pathetic actor he was.

On this day, they had a test--a midterm--and he wasn’t prepared. Usually, he could get by on just context clues, but he was tired. So tired.

Because this day was one year since his mom died, and Malcolm--the fucker he is--still was trying to get his abusive grimy hands on his parent’s money, trying to find a loophole in his mom’s will that wasn’t there. So Oliver was up all night with his dad’s old lawyer friends who always made sure to try protect his mom--man, didn’t they fucking fail tremendously-- and in extension, him. Not to mention he had helped Roy move into his lonely fucking mansion just so Roy didn’t have to go back to the Glades.

So he was tired, and he missed his mom and couldn’t understand how a year could have gone by without her. He still walked into her room--to see her there watching a movie or reading a book--but she wasn’t.

And it fucking ate at him like nothing he had experienced. He couldn’t concentrate on the questions, couldn’t even hear Felicity over his own thoughts as each one was consumed with equal amount of finding Malcolm and killing him and seeing his mom in a fucking casket.

He was going to fail this test and he couldn’t bring himself to care.

Here’s the thing to know before he continues: There are certain things that trickle through each life, things neither Felicity nor Oliver could change.

One was Oliver’s temper.

One was Felicity’s unwavering loyalty.

And then there were small things. Things he had picked up in every lifetime with her. He always had a twitch in his hand, like he wanted to shoot an arrow--a talent he had no matter what. 

And one particular was the way she reads and writes. She might be sitting behind him--always--but he didn’t need to look at her to know that when she is writing or reading or anything involving it, her nose is so close to the page she can smell the ink. He couldn’t count the amount of times he would see an ink blot on her nose throughout the years.

In other lives, he found it endearing.

Probably, if he allowed it, in this life too.

So this was no different, for her to be hunched over, her blonde hair sprawled around her, blocking her test from lingering eyes, some of that hair static clinging to his sweatshirt. He never even thought to push it off.

He was too overwhelmed.

And then he feels it and like someone turned off an industrial fan, all the thoughts settled around him. Her hand, and he knew it was the marked one, hidden beside her desk for no one to see was touching his back.

It was light and it was there and he almost pulled away to remind her didn’t need her to take care of him.

And for a second he does. He sits up straighter so they are disconnected and yet the panic gets worse. He can’t focus on her calmness because his anxiety is doubling over it.

So he slumps back and her hand connects to him again.

And then he hears her. Finally.

_Why is DNA important for protein synthesis?_

He stills, he is frozen because that is question one and he knows for a fact that Felicity is not on question one. And her marked hand is the hand she writes with. God, she is probably already done. In fact, he knows she is. It’s ten minutes into the test--Felicity is done and she was probably gone--

_Oliver._

He sighs.

_I don’t know._

Because he didn’t because he can’t remember. 

_It’s true/false, Oliver. Does the amino acid use DNA as a source of protein?_

_No._

_Good. Okay, B. does RNA build a DNA strand that syn--_

_No._

And it continues through the whole test. She goes through each question with him, never giving him the answer--practically teaching him the material.

She turned her test in last and everyone looked confused by it. She kept her hand on him through the whole class, so subtle that no one would ever see. She was lying her chin on crossed arms, waiting for the bell to ring.

But he knew what she was doing--she was piecing him together shard by shard--not even caring if it bloodied her perfect hands. 

\-- ---- --- 

“Earth to Felicity…” She can see a hand moving in front of her face, but it still takes about thirty seconds before she pulls her attention away from the screen.

“Sara, you’re here!” Felicity smiles at her best friend.

“Have been for about five minutes, thanks for noticing.” Sara teases plopping down in the hospital cafeteria beside her--well plopping as much as her eighth month belly would allow-- she and Nyssa successfully having insemination done. 

“Sorry,” Felicity grumbles, picking at her sandwich, eyes still pulled back to the TV. How can he still be looking so attractive five years later? Five years and she still melts at the sight of him.

“How can I compete when the Dodgers are playing?” Sara sighs, “You got a crush on one of the players?”

Felicity couldn’t even fake the smile. Because she missed him. She missed her stupid stubborn soulmate who she hadn’t seen in five years. She missed him every day and yet it seemed he was doing perfectly fine without her.

“Pipe dream. Wouldn’t ever get him to notice me,” Felicity shrugs.

“Oh, yes. Not like he almost killed a guy and called you his _wife_ or anything.”

That had been a fun fall out. Where Oliver took off, Felicity stayed and had to answer questions like did she get married in high school?

Was she pregnant?

Did Oliver dump her?

_No. No. Sort of._

Could you dump someone you never even had?

His fight and subsequent outing of them as soulmates--bonded ones at that--had caused quite an uproar for their graduating class. All of them wondering how they could have ever missed it? 

“Oh, and let’s not forget the my favorite part--” Sara stops, a finger in the air and taunting glint in her eyes, “You dream fuck like once a week.”

Felicity groans, her head hitting the table, “I never should have told you that.”

“Um, yes you should have since you didn’t tell me your soulmate was him,” She points at the screen where Oliver currently had eight strikeouts in four innings, “And you bonded at fourteen.”

“The tea is bitter today,” Felicity grins looking up from her arms.

“On the subject of Oliver Queen, it will always be bitter.” Sara chuckles, “Like, you lost your virginity at fourteen and here I thought you were just like never going to even date.”

It’s at least once a week Sara finds it necessary to guilt (as only a best friend could of course) Felicity for the fact she had a soulmate and didn’t tell for years who it was. That she had a soulmate and they bonded and a shockingly young age.

That she had a soulmate she was bonded to and it was _Oliver Queen._

Sara had been married to Nyssa for three years and still hadn’t bonded. 

And there was Felicity. Bonded and still single, and still sleeping with her soulmate in her dreams.

Literally.

She thinks. 

It started six months after he left. She wasn’t exactly looking to have sex with anyone. She went on one date with Ray, he kissed her and she told him it could never happen again. So she stopped trying to look for someone cause _her someone_ was damaged and off in LA.

And she was pathetically waiting for him.

Then one night, when she was stressed about a History exam, she fell asleep and had a rather lucid dream.

He looked just as confused as she did at first, both standing in his bedroom.

“Oliver?” She was concerned, she didn’t exactly dream. But maybe she needed to relax and why not dream up a delicious Oliver?

“Felicity,” She remembered him sighing and it felt like actual heaven. Then they were closing the gap and her lips were on his.

“I am dreaming, right?” She asked him and he pulled away from her.

“No, I am dreaming.” He raised a brow and she really couldn’t look further into it.

Because it felt so real and she hadn’t had sex in forever—well since he left. So even if it wasn’t real, and she would wake in the morning flustered and not able to finish the job--she really couldn’t give a fuck.

So she kissed him with everything she had.

He laid her on the bed, pulled off her jeans and started kissing and licking up her thighs, moving over where she wanted him and instead moved to kiss at her tattoo on her hip bone. It was of a sunflower, a line drawing--she loved flowers. Probably why his mark was of them.

He had a secret love of art.

She had an open affair with flowers.

“You got a tattoo?” he asked, “I’m starting to think this isn’t a normal dream.”

“No thinking.” She whimpered.

And then he went back to the torturous lick and nips. And then he is right where she wants him, and she digs deeper into the pillows, never wanting it to end.

It had to though, she was going to wake up right when it would start to get good. She is panting his name as he laps at her, her hands curled in his hair and then right when she thinks just maybe she is going to come--he pulls away.

“Oliver,” She cried in frustration and it caused him to actually laugh at her. He was so much more care free in this dream. All smiles and light--she wasn’t used to that. 

He is eye level with her, staring down at her with such adoration, she might orgasm just from that alone. 

“Hey baby,” He whispered, leaning forward to take her lips in his, his tongue battling with hers and then he pushes into her and she moans into his mouth.

He grabs one leg, hooking it over his hip as he thrusts into--hard. She is cursing at him, begging for more. And without either thinking of the bond, or the fact this is a _fucking_ dream, she comes and so does he.

“Fuck,” He groaned when he unloaded in her and she cried through her orgasm. And then he pulled back, on both hands staring down at her.

“Did you just--” She nodded, “And I--” She nodded again.

He stared down at her dumbfounded.

“Well, that’s a fucking perk.”

And then she woke up, drenched in her panties but definitely satisfied. It has been continuing on ever since. Neither discussed what it meant, or if it was even real. For all she knew, it was just her brain and her mark finally giving her something so she can have glorious sex with the man she loves even though she can’t have them. They couldn’t feel each other in the dreams, couldn’t share thoughts. It worried her he was just a figment of her imagination.

“He has a game here in two days.” Sara tells her like Felicity doesn’t watch every game and Sara didn’t buy tickets weeks ago. 

The Dodgers were her new favorite team. She even bought a Oliver Queen dodger shirt. And then she thought about taking it back because she felt creepy--until Sara said it wasn’t like the feelings _weren’t_ reciprocated. 

_You're his wife, aren’t you?_

That’s what Sara had asked when Felicity told her she felt wrong having it. 

She had never worn it, had no reason to, but he had a game in two days and Sara had bought tickets and was practically forcing her to go.

“Felicity, he said he needed to take care of himself for you.” Sara leans over and grabs Felicity’s hand, rubbing a finger over her blue and purple splotches.

They were dark as ever and that made her feel better--she hadn’t lost him yet--and maybe the dream sex was real enough for both of them.

“Romantic psychotic fucker,” Sara mutters making Felicity laugh, “But he did say that. And I think five years is enough time. So you are going to that game, you are wearing the Queen shirt, and you are getting thoroughly fucked.”

It was times like she couldn’t believe not only was Sara a child’s psychiatrist on the psych floor, but also weeks away from being a mom.

“Charmed,” Felicity jokes, pulling her hands away from her, not liking the touching.

“Also, I can’t go.” Sara says quickly.

“Wait--why?” Felicity asks nervously. She couldn’t go by herself--what if their bond was broken? 

What if he was dating someone?

What if he didn’t want her anymore?

“Forgot I had a doctor’s appointment,” Felicity opens her mouth to complain, “But, I already asked Iris and she can go.”

Felicity had met Iris in nursing school. She was kind, worked on the GI floor, and rather rambunctious when she wanted to be. She was a lot like Sara, actually.

“Honestly, let’s not tell her about Oliver because it will be hilarious when she seems him go all mind fuck on you.” Sara makes a gesture with her hands like she is putting on a show.

“He doesn’t _mind fuck_ me,” Felicity whispers as though one of her patients was going to hear the conversation.

“Umm--for four years I just thought he had a staring problem. I was _not_ shocked to find out he was literally fucking you in his mind-- consenually.” Sara rolls her eyes at the two of them like she isn’t completely obsessed with them as a couple. She is shocked Sara isn’t going to be at the game holding a sign that says Oliver & Felicity forever.

And so two days later, feeling absolutely ridiculous--Felicity finds herself sitting only rows above the dugout, wearing her Dodgers shirt and his name and number 18 on the back.

She kept her hair down, still as blue as ever (it really took convincing with the hospital but she won them over by saying it made the kiddos happy) and bright for him to see.

If he even looked around.

\--- ----

Oliver had a decent last five years. He went to therapy twice a week--on skype when traveling-- and through it, he had really gotten a handle on his life.

The abuse.

His parents.

Felicity. 

And though he was rich--well he was always rich, now just on his own accord-- he lacked in one department--Felicity.

It had been a lonely five years without her even with the dreams that he still wasn’t sure if it was just a loophole he found to get off without her or he was really dreaming _with_ her. 

He didn’t try to date, to hook up. He didn’t even find the idea appealing. The whole point of leaving her in Starling was so that he could fix himself and she could make a life without him and then after they did—they’d find each other.

But now he wanted her, and he had absolutely no way to contact her. He didn’t have her number--he didn’t need it in high school with the whole practically in each other’s minds at all times--she didn’t have social media, and she fucking moved.

Fuck, it was exhausting living day to day without her. So he focused on ball, something he did rather fucking well.

And today, he was back in his home state and tried not to think about potentially how close she might be. She didn’t leave the state, there was no fucking way. If Felicity left the state and didn’t come straight to him then he was royally fucked. 

He was so jittery in the locker room, his team had never played here and he knew the announcers would be all over him about the bad boy in his hometown.

He stopped trying to understand the bad boy thing. He was never in the news, never went out, never caused a stir. The only thing he had were a few tattoos and even that wasn’t rather shocking. They asked him all the time about his soul mark when he was a rookie and he got so tired of it, he got multiple tattoos so they couldn’t figure out which one was which.

And then came the questions on the tattoos.

Their favorite one to ask about was the clover on his forearm because he wasn’t fucking irish. Well, it had nothing to do with being Irish and everything to do with Smoak.

_He had found her in the grass by the school. She was wearing yoga pants that left nothing to the imagination, they were black high waisted and covered the skin her long sleeve crop top didn’t. She had her hair pulled back in a high messy bun and tied like a headband was one of her many head scarves. He loved the way she looked in those and loved even more when she’d straddle him to put one in his hair when it got too long._

_“Smoak,” He called out to her. No one was in class, it was the last day and tomorrow was graduation. They couldn’t leave the grounds, but they went anywhere on them. Seniors were scattered around the school, most taking to walking the trails, others finding a place to get high._

_She was looking down at something, bent over with her arms crossed and he couldn’t stop the images running through his mind about her ass._

_It caused her to turn and sit down._

_“You’re no fun.” He grumbled falling beside her much more gracefully than she did. It was probably for the best--he was wearing gym shorts and his hard on would be standing proud for the whole fucking quad to see. “What are you doing out here?”_

_What he wanted to say was he was leaving in three days and shouldn’t they just spend that whole time fucking?_

_“I’m ignoring you,” She grinned in a singsong voice, her fingers still moving over the grass._

_He squinted at the sun, arms stretched behind him in the grass and turned to her noticing she was looking through a clover patch._

_“Okay, seriously, what are you doing?”_

_But he knew and he didn’t think about how he knew until he was in the safety of his own mind without her that night. Because he knew she loved looking for four leaf clovers. When they were in elementary school, when Felicity was just a girl in a different class, he was always drawn to the way she sat during recess in the grass, fingers grazing over the clovers trying to find the lucky one._

_He would watch her and see her smile light up when she plucked the four leaf clover. Fuck, how did he not realize he liked her before he knew they were soulmates? Dense motherfucker, he was._

_She once found eight in one day. It never brought her more luck._

_“Looking for a lucky clover,” She grinned at the green in front of her._

_“If you find one, do I also get lucky?” He caught his tongue between his teeth to stop his grin from widening._

_She huffed at him and he expected her to ignore him. But then, she surprised him, by instead climbing into his lap. She straddled his waist and he kept his hands back behind him, her arms clasped around his neck._

_“If I find one, can I go with you?” She whispered before she leaned down and kissed him._

It was one of the last times he saw her and it wasn’t long after he got the tattoo just to remember that final good day with her.

He was going to have more with her, he just needed to fucking figure out where she was. He was walking through the tunnel and it is when he is halfway through that he feels it.

Overwhelming anxiety. And not his anxiety.

Holy fuck. She was here.

He caught himself, literally stuttered in his steps and his teammate and closest friend being he was his partner as a catcher--John--slammed into him. 

“Fuck, Oliver. You good?” He asked, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

Oliver only nodded though. He thought he was going to fucking vomit from the onslaught of feelings. It had been so long, he wasn’t used to it anymore. He just needed a few minutes to acclimate back to his body no longer being just his and then he was going to go fucking find her.

He took a few deep breaths, waiting for her thoughts to erupt and then he heard it.

_Did you get lost?_

His mind went blank at her voice. He didn’t realize how lonely his mind was without her in it. 

_Because the players are out here, but I still see no Oliver._

The corners of his mouth ticked up, and he finally walked the rest of the way and out of the dugout. He turned to look for her, scanning the crowd and the he sees--four aisles up, that fucking cyan hair.

_Hey._

He smiles, so fucking wide that he doesn’t even care if there was going to be a report on ESPN tomorrow about how cold broody Oliver Queen was caught smiling.

_I must say, you are so much better looking in person than in dreams._

_Dreams, huh? So I guess those were real for both of us?_

She nods, and he is genuinely not sure how he is supposed to get through this game when she is right there.

_Hopefully well. I mean, it’s my first Dodgers game and all._

“Queen, in the dugout!” His coach grunted.

He gives her one more smile, shaking his head and climbing down and taking a spot leaning against the railing.

“What’s your deal? I thought psychopaths didn’t know how to smile,” John jokes, tossing a piece of gum in his mouth.

“Blue hair, can’t miss her,” Oliver tells him.

“Who is she?” Curtis asks, leaning back and looking over John.

Oliver just raises his marked hand and turns back to the game. The rest of the team becomes thoroughly more interested in seeing Oliver Queen’s soulmate.

He gets through the first inning, able to concentrate on the game and not looking at her, making sure she doesn't disappear on him.

During their at bat, each player took to turning around and trying their hardest not to look obvious about Felicity, but wanting to see what would cause their star pitcher who spoke probably ten words collectively over the last five years looking like a kid on Christmas morning.

Especially Barry whose grin is so fucking wide when he comes back after striking out that the coach snaps at him for it.

“They are worse than bumbling teenage girls,” John laughs. “Honestly, I am shocked you even told us.”

“Just preparing you in case I leave unannounced.” It was only half joking. “Five years is long fucking time.”

“Fuck, I can’t even imagine being away from Lyla that long,” John almost looks in pain at the thought of being away from his wife, rubbing at the mark on his shoulder. He barely can handle weeks when she can’t come to the road games.

Oliver almost mutters about being bonded and it being that fucking long. 

It’s during the second inning and he is up to bat. He steps into the ondeck circle casually swinging back and forth.

_If you get a hit, I will make it worth your while._

He chuckles, _Oh really?_

_I mean, it is pretty embarrassing if my shirt says number 18 and then he strikes out._

He stops swinging, almost drops the bat and is very thankful he is wearing a cup or else everyone and their mother would know he is fucking half mast at the thought alone.

_Felicity._

_Hmm?_

He turns around then, glaring at her smirking face. It’s like she doesn’t remember just how much he fucking enjoys her wearing his shit. And this time, his number, his name.

_Oh trust me, Oliver. I remember. Do you ?_

She taps at her chin, fucking taunting him.

_Now, What was it you said last time?_

Fuck, she is literally seducing him in the middle of a baseball game. He gulps and shakes his leg to look like he is trying to get the jitters out and not because he wants to fuck her in her seat. 

_I want to fuck you in that shirt, Felicity._

_Promise ?_

\--- ---- 

She wasn’t trying to tease him at first. She wasn’t even sure where her confidence came from. Maybe it was because of the 100 kilowatt smile when he saw her, maybe it was the super not subtle way each of his teammates stared at her when they walked out of the dug out.

Maybe it was the happy feeling sitting in her chest ever since he felt her. 

He still wanted her. He still loved her.

Maybe that’s why she was loving toying with him. Even if his arousal made hers even more unbearable. 

He got his hit, and she could feel the smugness when he made it to first. And then he got all the way home and looked at her with such heat and she had to close her legs and squeeze to gain some kind of friction.

It was intense, the tension building in both of them. They were so close and yet for at least a few more hours, she couldn’t be near him. This was definitely a new type of foreplay she didn’t expect to enjoy. 

“If I didn’t know better, I would say Oliver Queen was looking at you,” Iris muttered out of the side of her mouth.

“Probably thinks I’m someone else.” Felicity shrugged, knowing she sounded breathless.

It wasn’t like Iris could see his hand, he had it covered by a glove or a batting glove the whole time. He was a lefty in every sense of the word other than when he wrote. Which was weird--it was probably the only thing about him that was different.

“Or maybe he likes his fans a little _too_ much.” Iris interprets from Oliver's heated stares, “Maybe it likes gets him off.”

Iris can trust that it is definitely _not_ his fans getting him off.

The innings ticked by, Oliver played seven innings and only gave up two hits. When they finally pulled him out of the game, twitter was already exploding over his amazing game.

15 strike outs.

3 for 4 at bat.

He had an amazing game and she did not believe it was because he was trying to impress her.

_What are the odds you can sneak into the locker room?_

She giggled. Once he got into the rhythm of the game, the lust and need receded slightly. She could focus on not having him screw her brains out. But she literally tingled every time he spoke. 

_No._

_Why? It isn’t like we haven’t done it before._

_There wasn’t security before, Oliver._

She sighed, feeling much less interested in this game now he was out of it. He had really ruined baseball for her.

_Technicality._

_Oh yes, a technicality where I end up looking like a crazy groupie._

_I mean, you are wearing a shirt with my name on it._

Cocky prick.

_Puh-lease, it is practically my name too._

The feeling she felt in her chest when she said it made her turn to goo. He was nervous, like happy anticipatory nervous--because of her. Because of what she said.

_Ugh. Fine, since adult you is just as difficult as teenage you--we will meet at the bar next to the hotel--Porters._

She smiled and covered it with her mouth so no one thought she looked like an escaped mental patient smiling and making faces with herself.

_I’ll be there._

\---- ----

After the game, Oliver barely could sit through the team meeting. His leg was practically galloping with how much he was bouncing it. To the point, Curtis leaned over and grabbed it.

“Sorry,” He mutters.

After what felt like a fucking eternity, he was able to go. He showered, dressed back in his henley and jeans, slipped on his shoes and was ready to sprint out the door.

“Wait a hot damn minute.” Barry calls him back and he almost kills them all just so he could get to her faster.

He really needed to cut back on the homicidal tendencies. 

“Fuck, I am really not in the mood.” He snips.

“We want to meet her,” Curtis grins, Barry and John nodding beside him.

“Trust me when I say, there will not be enough time for pleasantries.”

If it is up to Oliver, he will be walking in, grabbing her and taking her to the nearest restroom. And after that, they were going to his hotel and fuck some more. And after that, they would discuss the past five fucking years.

“We are still going.” John shrugs, obviously bored with his wife not there. She would be at the game tomorrow and he would be much less clingy. She was flying in probably on the same flight as Roy.

“Whatever, if you follow me--you follow me.” He grumbles, and the three men follow behind him.

During the quick walk, he managed to dump his bag in the hotel lobby where they will be staying, knowing full well it will get where it needs to be, grabs his room key--thank fuck it is a single room--and turns right back out.

He even texts Roy who sends back just a gif of Michael Scott screaming _oh my god, it’s happening._ Roy followed him to LA, most likely to make sure Oliver didn’t get arrested which is what he promised Tommy. He and Roy got extremely close over the years and he even told him all about Felicity.

“Wait--Curtis just said you two are bonded?” Barry almost creamed his pants at the excitement.

“Fuck, Curtis.” Oliver groans, steps ahead of them trying not to run into the bar.

“I am sorry that one of my best mates is finally getting to see his bonded soulmate after five years. Fucking sue me.” Curtis snips, “They have been bonded since they were fourteen, by the way.”

Curtis was bonded, he and his husband bonded after five years of marriage--randomly while they were sleeping. When he came to practice looking rather freaked, Oliver asked and when he told him--Oliver felt it only friendly to tell him the ins and outs.

They had been friends ever since. But right now, he really didn’t need the distractions.

“Multiple lives, married, like a thousand years old.” He can hear Curtis rambling behind him, John and Barry gasping when necessary. 

Oliver ignores his friends, instead finally making it to the door and finally feeling her again. She is nervous, jumpy and probably wondering where he is.

She is sitting in a booth, facing the door and he finds her the second he walks in. He doesn’t hesitate--takes the final steps to her and then grabs her by the hand and pulls her out of the booth.

“Um, what?” He hears someone say but he really doesn’t care. The world could be fucking ending and he would still be focused solely on Felicity.

Who had changed in the last five years. Not bad by any stretch of the imagination. She just looked older, more mature. Her hair still fell long around her, but was layered and styled like she had money to get it cut. Her face was thinner, her hips wider. She wore lipstick. Same glasses though. Dream Felicity has aged with him, but seeing her in person. Fuck. 

“Oliver,” She pulls him out of his trance. 

Her voice. 

Fuck, he missed that voice. Raspy, buttery. Could lull him to sleep, he missed its sweetness so much. 

“Alright, let’s go,” He pushes at her waist. She giggles at his insistence, like she isn’t just as ready to go as he is. He can practically smell it on her.

“Excuse me, you can’t just manhandle a girl cause she is a fan.”

Oliver didn’t know this person sitting in the booth with Felicity but he was seconds away from strangling her and he hoped his glare explained that for him. 

_Oliver._

_Felicity. I don’t have the patience for this._

_I mean, I am a fan._

_Baby, please._

He is not above begging at this point. He’s so hard just from the anticipation alone, he barely can move. 

“Hello!” Oliver is about to kick everyone out this fucking bar. 

Felicity’s back is against his chest and he is really trying to keep his erection under control and he really just needs her alone. He drops his forehead against the back of her head, and he does _not_ inhale just to get a whiff of her pear scent. He just needed to breathe, that’s all.

Barry’s eyes are bright staring at Felicity, and then Oliver, then back to Felicity. “You two…”

“Fuck off,” Oliver snaps, still not even caring about the offended girl in the booth. “Curtis, if you could please catch everyone up.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, pushing Felicity towards the bathroom once again. 

“See you tomorrow,” he calls over his shoulder. 

“Oliver, you need to be nice.” She scolds him. His hands are on her waist as he maneuvers her through the bar. 

“That was me being nice,” He mutters in her ear. “If I don’t fuck you, Felicity, I might just kill someone.”

She sighs, almost moans. “We could just go to the hotel.”

“Too far.” He shakes his head. And finally , _finally_ they make it into the hallway where the bathrooms are. 

“Someone probably recognizes —

He doesn’t let her finish because he spins her around, picks her up and slams his mouth onto hers in one movement. 

She instantly opens hers for him. His tongue moving hers, sucking her own and reaching for the bathroom door. Her legs are so tight around his waist he doesn’t even have to hold her. 

_You just want to fuck me in a public place._

_Yes. Now please, let me._

She giggles against his mouth as he stumbles into the bathroom. Men’s he thinks. No one is in there with them and he locks the door behind him. 

He positions her on the counter, grabbing the back of her neck and trying to get as close to her as possible. 

“Fuck, I missed you so fucking much.” He growls into her mouth as she makes quick work of his pants zipper. 

He picks her back off the counter and steadies her on the floor, shoving her shorts down and ripping her panties with it. 

“Oliver, I liked those,” she pouts into his lips as she steps out of her high waisted shorts. 

“I’ll buy you more.” He promises, picking her up and slamming into her just as they fall into the wall. 

Her moan at him filling her about makes him come on the spot. 

“Fuck, I’m not wearing a condom.” He pauses. He is also not carrying one. He wasn’t exactly expecting to see her and he is used to Dream Felicity with no consequences. 

_I’m on the pill._

He stills about to ask why the fuck she is on the pill. 

_I have bad periods, dumbass._

He knew that. He _is_ a dumbass. 

_Sorry._

_Mhmm._

He thrusts into her again. 

“Yours, Oliver.” She moans against his mouth as she clutches his face so tight he is sure she is scratching him. 

It is the epitome of a quickie—fast, carnal and straight fucking. That’s what they needed this first time. Cause it had been a long five years and now he can never go back to the dreams—no matter how realistic. 

“I’m about— 

Her words are cut off as he slams into her harder, hitting her g spot over and over until she is spasming around him and he comes seconds later. 

_Now, we go to the hotel._

His head is resting against her shoulder, trying to catch his breath. 

“Everyone who saw you is gonna tweet about this, ya know?” She is playing with hair on the back near his neck. 

“I really don’t give a fuck.”

“Oh, my Oliver. As charming as ever.” She teases, nuzzling into him. 

———- —— 

She is wrapped up in the blanket that came with the bed. What kind of hotel gives you a blanket? Rich hotels--that kind.

She is sitting on the balcony overlooking the city in only Oliver's black shirt. It hangs even more baggy on her than it used to. He was still asleep, flat on his stomach and snoring when she pulled herself out of the bed.

It was five in the morning and she needed to be at work in two hours. Where Sara and Iris would be waiting--no doubt already gossiping on the fact Oliver practically threw her over his shoulder like a caveman.

She didn’t even mind.

Not with him.

But there was still the worry settled inside of her that he was going to shove her away again. He got his sex, he got her to hold on for a little longer and then he would drop her just like he always did.

But he seemed so happy to see her. He smiled at her, he called her baby and god she was so pathetic.

_Quiet down, Smoak._

She sighs, the panic still swirling inside of her but his confidence was trying so hard to beat it down. She stays in her spot, curling in the patio chair, staring at the twinkling lights.

She hears the glass door slide open, he pulls the other chair close to her and sits beside her. They sit beside each other quietly, only the emotions moving back and forth between like the tide.

“My mom died,” She tells him, cracking at the thought even eight months later.

And she feels bone crushing sorrow emitting from him because he knows that pain and he knows being absolutely alone in it. And then she felt his guilt.

“It’s not your fault, Oliver.” She removes her hand from her blanket cocoon and reaches for his . Their marked hands once again wrapped together and buzzing in happiness. 

“I should have been there. I shouldn’t have--” The self-hate is bounding in him and it kills her.

She climbs out of her chair and moves onto his lap. His hands instantly go to her hips, like they were made for them to settle right there.

Well, she guesses they were.

“I didn’t tell you to upset you,” She sighs, “I just wanted you to know.”

“Why didn’t you call me?” He asks, reaching up and pushing a stray blue strand out of her face and cupping her cheek.

“I didn’t know how and I didn’t know if you wanted me to,” She confesses.

Losing her mom was the worst pain she’d experienced. Her mom was doing better, going to therapy, volunteering at the local library. She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t suicidal. It was all on the up and up. And then she got hit by a drunk driver at eight in the morning when she was walking to the library. 

She stood by herself at the funeral, she didn’t want the pity from friends as they held her hand. Because they didn’t know her mom. They didn’t know her struggles. They didn’t know the pain she felt being raped seconds after meeting her soulmate. The man thinking it was considered consent because her neck was branded with his knife. They didn’t know the feeling of distraught every time she looked upon the eyes of her daughter--the product of assault-- and still loving her the best she could.

So she stood alone. She went home alone. She cried alone.

“Stop, Felicity.” He stresses and she realizes her mind was falling into despair and pulling him with her, “The dreams, you could--”

She shakes her head, “I didn’t even know they were real and I didn’t want you to think I was telling you to make you come back to me.”

He drops his head and she kisses the top of his head.

“I’m so sorry, baby.” 

She shrugs, “I am getting by. Work helps.”

She wants to change the subject. She needs him to change the subject and she knows he can feel that, he can hear her screaming she is done with this conversation.

“Which specialty are you in this time?” He asks and she can still hear the notes of struggle in his voice.

“Pediatric Oncology,”

“You’ve never done that before.” He tilts his head, a small smile gracing his plump lips. 

This Oliver is different, he isn’t acting like he doesn’t care about her, like he isn’t disgusted by the thought of loving her.

His eyes hardened, “That wasn’t it.”

She gnaws on her lip, her hands on his chest grazing her fingers over the rose tattoo on his chest. “Oliver,”

“I wasn’t disgusted, Smoak.” He lifts her chin, pulling her closer so all she can do is look into his blue eyes. They don’t look as sad anymore. Who was able to help him in the ways she couldn’t?

“Oh, baby.” She was breaking in front of him and she couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t stop letting her mind wander and allowing him a front row seat, “Everything I have done in these past five years is so I could get back to you.”

It happens then, the tears begin to overwhelm her senses and fall down her cheeks.

“I go to a therapist. We talk twice a week. Mostly about you and about all the ways I have fucked up in this life. My anger, my inability to let you in.”

She hiccups, rubbing at her nose.

“My love for you was never in the question, Felicity.” He leans up kissing her through her tears, trying to bring her back to him. She never left him. “I was so fucked up. I was going to ruin us if I stayed.”

“And you are getting better? It’s helping?” She doesn’t care how pathetic she is, anymore. She doesn’t care that she has let him come and go so many times that if it was anyone else she’d probably tell him to get the hell out.

“It is definitely looking up.”

\-- ----

Felicity managed to finally remove herself from Oliver’s hotel room though he didn’t make it easy for her. Thankfully, she only worked about twenty minutes from the hospital and always kept an extra pair of clean scrubs in her locker.

She got through the first two hours with relative ease and then it happened-- Iris found her on a break.

“Felicity, what the hell?” Iris snaps when she closes the break room door.

“Iris, good morning to you too.”

“No ma’am. No time for pleasantries. Not when you literally got kidnapped by Oliver Queen last night.” Iris all but slams her body into the chair beside Felicity.

“He didn’t kidnap me.”

“Of course he didn’t. He didn’t need to when you are his soulmate.” Iris’s tone has changed, almost wistful, like she wasn’t really made at all.

“That he is,” Felicity confirms.

“Bonded,” Iris adds. Felicity nods. “You are one lucky girl. You know that, right?” 

Felicity snorts. She was sure Oliver would believe differently on that front even if Felicity thought she was the luckiest girl in the world--most days.

Iris lifts her hand out of her lap, palm up, “I guess there is a thanks in order.”

Felicity gasped, “You met your soulmate?”

Iris nooded, bright eyed, “Barry.” 

Felicity was happy for her, Iris always wanted to meet her soulmate.

They continue to talk about the night before. Iris asks her for details Felicity would never give her. She doesn’t tell her about their words, their minds, their feelings. Those were hers and she wasn’t ready to share yet.

She did decide halfway through her shift that she really needed to get Oliver’s number before she lost him again. She really didn’t want to rely on dreams to get in contact with him.

His game started at noon and she kept tabs through her phone, hoping they did well but not as invested when he wasn’t playing. 

It was during the eighth inning when they put him in as a reliever. They were down by one and needed his cold and clear game play to get them through the inning. It wasn’t the first time they put him in as a reliever or closer. 

It was during his at bat that she walked into a patient’s room to see how a little boy was handling his snack and his vitals. The dad sat to the side of his bed watching Oliver at bat.

“You into baseball?” He asks Felicity and she smiles at him with a nod while wrapping the blood pressure cuff around the four year old’s arm,

“Dodgers fan?” She asks him and he scoffs.

“Can’t say I am,” He shakes his head even at the thought. He looked so tired, bags cut into his eyes destined to forever be there. He needed this conversation with her, she could tell.

“Are you?” He asks her and she looks up at the TV to where Oliver was two pitches away from being walked.

She breathes through her teeth, and shrugs, “I think I am more of a Oliver Queen fan.”

The dad laughs, obviously believing it is from Oliver’s good looks and brooding personality. She lets him think that and the man would never know the difference.

But then it happens, the fastball comes in so fast--most likely over 100 mph-- he doesn’t have time to react, time to move before it is crushing into his face and he falls to the ground.

She doesn’t know how she reacted. It was tunnel vision as he dropped to the ground unmoving. She knows that she was smiling seconds before and after she was clutching her heart through her chest like she was going to feel his beating, to let her know he was okay. 

She remembered screaming in such terror that the other nurses ran into the room expecting a dying patient. Because that’s the sound she made. She was just like a family member who was terrified of what was happening in front of her. Who was out of control. She knows she is crying and knows it has been two minutes and he still hasn’t moved.

“Felicity, Felicity,” Someone is pulling at her, but she can’t look away. She needs to know he is okay. She needs to know he can move. She needs to see him move.

She sees it then, so subtle but they have stripped him of his gloves, of his helmet and his marked hand is seen through the screen as he grabs at one of his teammate’s--John-- hand.

It was only then she let the others pull her out of the room and most likely the traumatized child. 

A PCT gets her into a break room while another calls Sara because everyone on the floor knows their friendship. She is in a sobbing tailspin by the time Sara is kneeling in front of her.

“Felicity,” Her voice is soothing in only a way a child’s psychiatrist can be.

It calms Felicity only enough to slow the sobs. “He’s gonna be okay.”

Felicity shook her head, “You don’t know that. You don’t see it. It hit his face--” She starts sobbing as she thinks of the image again.

Sara soothes her, wrapping an arm tight over her shoulders and letting her cry. Because Sara knows that if it was Nyssa that she just saw get hit and she had no way (other than sportscasts) to know if she was okay--she would be hysterical too.

She doesn’t know how long she sits there. She knows the charge nurse releases her for the day after Sara explains the situation while Felicity tries to calm down. And by the time she hears he is downstairs in the ER, she is only hiccuping.

She all but runs through the corridors, down the stairs and jumps the last three to the landing. She makes it to the nurse’s station completely out of breath and she knows they probably think she is a crazy person with her wild eyes and stained red face.

“What room is Oliver Queen in?” She asks them and they look at her like she is deranged and not one of their colleagues.

“We aren’t really--”

“Look, I understand that. Breaking the glass and all, but this is different. Like soulmates different so please, _please_ just tell me.” She begs, hands clasped in front her. 

The male nurse sees her hands, sees the swirling colors and it seems to be enough for him to tell her Oliver’s room. She barely can breathe and it is destroying her that she can’t feel him—it means he isn’t awake. 

She rounds the corner ready to walk into his room but stops. Her whole world crumbles around her because a girl is already in the room. 

She is red faced from crying, sitting in the chair beside him. Felicity can see she is wearing a Queen Dodgers jersey and she is looking at him with such love, a hand with a diamond ring wrapped around his still one that it makes Felicity want to run to the nearest trash can and throw up. 

He couldn’t. He couldn’t have a fiancé. He couldn’t be in a relationship because they were bonded. How would he ever explain that? And he was with her last night. He was telling her he wanted to be with her. He said his love was never a question.

But then who else was this girl?

Felicity must make a cry of anguish but the girl catches her eye through the tears. She even glares at her. Felicity spins around walking as fast she can to get away. 

She can hear steps behind her, calling after her, but she doesn’t care. 

She couldn’t face this woman who was holding _her_ soulmate. 

She makes it to the stairs corridor and finally takes a sobering breath. 

And then the door opens and the woman steps in. 

She is beautiful— like actually beautiful with her chocolate locks, her and perfect skin. Why wouldn’t someone want her ?

“Okay, either you’re really fast or I’m really out of shape,” She tells Felicity taking a deep breath and wiping at her chapped cheeks. 

“Excuse me?” Felicity asks quietly, not able to look her in the eyes. 

“You are Felicity, right?” But she doesn’t let Felicity answer. “You have to be. How many blue haired nurses are there?”

Felicity opens her mouth. 

“Cyan, Sorry.” 

How does she know her? How does this girl look at Felicity with such ease and know who she is and not want to punch her in the face?

“Do I know you?” Felicity is really confused because this girl is definitely not acting like someone who just ran into their fiancé’s soulmate. 

“He didn’t tell you about me?” She raises an eyebrow—perfectly plucked— and Felicity shakes her head. 

No, he definitely didn’t any of the time he was having sex with her last night and telling her he wanted to be with her. 

“I’m slightly offended,” She pouts. 

“Slightly?” Because Felicity is furious underneath her pain and sadness. Because she is not the other woman— she was first. She is his soulmate. 

It’s his fault he went and got engaged, not hers. 

“Well, yeah. I mean—I get like he was excited to see you and that’s why he didn’t even text last night but still.” She waves a hand, brushing the sentence away, brushing her anger away. 

Seriously, who is this person?

“I’m sorry—I’m Thea.” She sticks a hand out and Felicity tries not to stare at the engagement ring glaring back at her. 

“I’m sorry he didn’t text you last night,” Felicity whispers and is about to grovel for forgiveness. 

Felicity can’t look in her eyes, can’t face her and Thea tightens her grip on Felicity. Oh no, she is going to kill her. And Felicity can’t really blame her.

“Wait—who do you think I am?” Thea asks, still holding onto Felicity’s. 

Felicity cuts her eyes to the ring. Thea pulls back quickly, “Ew! No, no, no!” She is waving her hands like a maniac and her face shows absolute disgust at the thought.

“No?” Felicity prayed she was just completely wrong. Her Oliver wouldn’t do that to her. 

“Sister! Oliver’s sister !” Thea points at herself, like that would clear up everything, but to Felicity it just feels like a lie. 

Felicity scoffs, really confused. “Oliver doesn’t have a sister.”

Thea blushes, “I’m like a baby on the doorstep at fourteen kinda story. Talk about a plot twist, am I right?”

Felicity stares at her long, and then her mind starts to clear and she sees it. The blue eyes are so similar to Oliver’s, they are just not as cold, the same crafted by a sculptor cheekbones, the sloping of the nose.

How could she not see it before?

Felicity leans over, arms still crossed and gasps for air. She is all but sobbing in front of this stranger but she has been through a lot in the last five minutes. She thought her soulmate of a thousand years was marrying someone else. 

She feels a hand on her back, “I’m sorry I didn’t clear that up quicker.”

Felicity shakes her head leaning back up, “No, it’s okay. I just--”

Thea nods, “I get it. I would kill Roy.”

Felicity tilts her head, “Like Roy?”

She jerks her head so excitedly and it’s in that movement she notices this girl can’t be older than nineteen. She flips her palm to show the equal symbol on her hand. “Meeting your brothers and soulmate in one day is not something I recommend.”

Felicity chuckles, and Thea pulls at her arm, directing her back to Oliver and Felicity doesn’t hesitate.

“Especially when you are fourteen,” She adds.

“I’m sure Oliver handled that great.”

Thea snorts, “Oliver doesn’t handle anything _great._ ”

Felicity likes this girl. She is what she thought Oliver would be more like if he wasn’t so hell bent on not letting anyone see him happy. 

“I’m a pest, I know,” She smirks, flicking her brown hair over her shoulder, “But he takes care of me and I’m sure that’s more because of you than anything else.”

“Me?” Felicity asks as they stop in front of Oliver’s room. 

“Oliver makes himself a better person solely for you and no one else.” Thea shrugs not looking an ounce offended. “I’m going to go call Tommy and make sure Roy stays out.”

Felicity nods and is relieved because she was dying from not being close to him. She sneaks into his room, her back against the door staring at his prone figure.

His face is bandaged completely on one side of his face and she wouldn’t be surprised if his cheek bones are shattered completely and will need surgery.

_Thanks for that bode of confidence._

He is peeking at her through one eye and she starts to cry again, rushing over and climbing into the bed with him. He sighs, his arms wrapping tight around her. 

_I’m fine._

She can feel his pain and he is definitely _not_ fine. She shakes her head against him.

_Well, I will be._

“I saw it Oliver. I saw it,” She cried into his neck, the image of him being hit repeating over and over.

_It looked worse than it was, baby. I promise_

“You can’t even talk,” She whimpered, pulling up to see his bandaged face.

“I can,” He croaks through pain.

She glares at him because he shouldn’t be talking at all.

_You’re the one who said I couldn’t._

“You’re an idiot.” She mutters and he warms her with his mirth, “I met Thea.”

_Oh god, how panicked is she?_

Felicity huffs good naturedly, “Your sister is about as put together as your soulmate is right about now. Especially since I thought she was your _fiance._ ”

_Gross._

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Felicity asks, wondering why he always keeps his family life, his whole life so packed away from her.

_Cause I wanted a night of just me and you. Today, I was going to tell you how I found my and Tommy’s long lost sister being abused in a group home._

“I’m sorry,” Felicity whispers, feeling embarrassed from always thinking he had an ulterior motive with her.

_Felicity._

She looks at him because she can hear that’s what he wants from her and so she does.

_I have been in love with you since we were fifteen and you helped me with my midterm._

She stills, her heart racing at his words and stares into his one open eye.

_And I have wanted you even longer. Probably since elementary school when you picked four leaf clovers all through recess and gave Tommy one when he broke his arm on the jungle gym._

Felicity rests her forehead against his own, careful not to hurt him.

“Desperate, Oliver,” She whispers. 

_I haven’t been kind to our souls, Smoak._

“We haven’t been kind to our hearts,” She responds.

He nods.

_I’d kiss you, but--_

Felicity giggles.

“I love you.”

_I love you._

_\-- --- ---_

Oliver was running late. He had rushed home after his workout to take his shower expecting to find Felicity putting on her finishing touches, but of course--his sweet Smoak can’t stand the idea of being late to anything.

He didn’t want to go to the stupid reunion but Felicity had made it abundantly clear to him he did not a choice in the matter.

It was off season and anything Felicity wanted, Felicity got.

Weeks after his accident, which left only minimal scarring, he proposed to her. The media ran rampant when they heard lone Oliver Queen was married but he had speant enough time being stupid about Felicity.

So in a courthouse with only Thea, Tommy and Sara there--they got married. And that night he jetted off for his next game. 

Six months later, Starling High was holding their five year reunion--which in reality is the stupidest thing in the fucking world-- and Felicity wanted to go.

He rushed into the hotel, pulling his blazer on in the process and seeing all the fuckers he left behind scattered throughout. In his opinion, he mastered post high school better than anyone else and maybe it was an ego boost when they all stared at him with equal looks of awe and fear.

He did _almost_ kill someone.

But he didn’t care about them or this reunion. What he cared about was seeing his wife--actually his wife this time--and if he sees his sister he guesses that would be nice too.

When he found out about Thea, he was in the process of moving to LA. He got a letter from his parents’ lawyer telling him about her. How she was the product of a one night stand, right before his mom and dad realized they wanted to be together.

Oliver was only four, he only slightly remembered his mom’s rounded belly and being told the baby didn’t make it.

The story goes Malcolm and his mom slept together before they were married. And Malcolm was still married to Tommy’s mom so he forced mom to give Thea up and without Robert there to protect her, she did it.

And Oliver found her when she was fourteen and somehow even with the terrible cards dealt to her, when she had reason to be batshit crazy, she was just kind.

He felt an innate need to protect her at all costs.

And ever since then, he did.

It was quite a bummer that the day he found her and introduced her to Roy--they shook hands and there it was--fucking soulmates. He had a very long conversation with Roy about not touching her until she was eighteen.

And then he called Tommy and they had a very awkward conversation about sharing a sibling.

Loving his sister was new. It was a lot like loving his mom. It came natural, like breathing. The night they met, she gave him the ring.

_“I stole this from my foster mom,” She tells him, skittish from her history, “I think it belonged to your mom.”_

_“Our mom,” He corrected her._

_She nodded, taking another large bite of the food Tommy had cooked for them, “She said that our mom mentioned your dad when she took me away that day. How she loved him. How they were going to be engaged when he died.”_

It was a rather sickening thing to hear. That his dad was coming home to his mom, to propose to her because she called him the night after she slept with Malcolm and told him everything.

And then he fucking died. 

But Oliver kept the ring, held onto it for the five years until it finally got to be worn on Felicity. 

He steps into the ballroom and he sees her at the bar, sipping on a water through a straw (cause she is a child) and talking cordially to the bartender. She has a hand in her lap, rubbing absentmindedly against her stomach. 

He’s close enough to feel her joy, and he can hear her speaking. She settles her chin into her left hand, her ring sparkling against the blue and purple mark covering her hand all the way down to her wrist.

Her dress’s back is open enough he can see the tattoo that climbs up her spine--a replica of the flowers covering his own hand.

She’s practically glowing.

“He’s around here somewhere,” She grins and then she cuts her eyes, smiling widely at him.

She stands from her stool, thanking the young girl behind the bar and her dress falls around her.

It was black, covered in pink flowers and even from the distance he can see her slightly protruding belly. She was four months along and the small bump appeared seemingly overnight. She was careful, protective of the baby they were so terrified of losing. They had lost so many of their children, but this felt different. This child felt destined. 

She glides towards him, her long hair curled and flowing behind her. The cyan was fading because of her being pregnant and not dying it, but it was still there holding on, “Hey.”

She reaches up and moves hair out of his forehead. He places a hand on the side of her stomach, “You weren’t at home.”

“I figured you’d find me,” She leans up and kisses him lightly.

_Always, Smoak. Always._

  
  
  
  
  



End file.
